How Classic Resident Evil Came Back From the Dead

Channel:

Corrupted Save

Subscribers:

2,930

Published on March 15, 2020 5:43:49 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIdCM3Ce8FA

Game:

Resident Evil 2 (2019)

Duration: 19:53

1,281 views

108

Thank you for checking out my video essay on the Resident Evil series. This is an analysis of the whole series and how the classic game mechanics have been translated to the newest games. There will be minor visual spoilers for the series as a whole.

I'd like to start off by thanking two people that have stuck around and endlessly encouraged me to keep making the video. Without their interest and support, I probably wouldn't have published a video for another two years.

Please go follow and support them, they're wonderful people.

SolePorpoise
https://www.youtube.com/c/soleporpoise
https://twitter.com/SolePorpoise

Eurothug4000
https://www.youtube.com/c/eurothug4000
https://twitter.com/eurothug4000

I cannot stress how much I love Resident Evil. The series has not given us the most consistent output over the years. But it's one that - in spite of everything - has never been uprooted as the franchise I hold closest to my heart. (I will never forgive Paul WS Anderson for those movies.)

Originally, I wanted to create this video after playing Resident Evil 7. I thought it was so interesting that the game felt so close to playing a classic Resident Evil game while being mechanically so dissimilar to the older titles. I thought perhaps it was just the contrast coming off of Resident Evil 6.

After Resident Evil 2 came out, I decided I needed to replay the entire series and record all of my playthroughs. I recorded multiplayer and single player runs of the applicable games, multiple scenarios for ones that had them, the DLC scenarios, and some of the spinoff games like Outbreak and Revelations 1 and 2.

YouTube is full of great videos tracking through the series chronologically. They sum up the games one at a time recounting production highlights and tracking through the stories, characters and locations of each title. I wanted to pull back and ignore all of that and just look at how the game systems were set up and why they worked together to create the specific "Resident Evil" experience.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew. There are a lot of observations and points that hit the cutting room floor. I could ramble on for hours about all of the little details and threads connecting the games. I didn't mention ink ribbons versus checkpoints in the video. I also didn't mention how each game has a partner character regardless of the multiplayer aspect. Even Dead Aim had Fong Ling.

And perhaps one day I'll make a supercut of all repeating elements like mansion foyers, cranks, pianos, and climactic explosions. There could be an entire video on just the helicopters in the series, I'm sure.

In any case, I'm sure that this video barely scratches the surface, but I hope this gives some idea on why I think these newer games "feel" like Classic Resident Evil titles, even though they're clearly not identical in style.

I'm not an authority on the subject by any stretch; I'm just someone that has played this series quite a bit. All of these thoughts are my own observations, and Shinji Mikami himself could come slap me down for being incorrect. I would very much like for Shinji Mikami to interact with me at all, even if it's just to berate me.

I hope you get something from this video, even if it's just a spot of entertaining fluff. Thank you for watching and even just reading this blurb.

-Jack

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